I am in SW Wyoming at 7000 ft. Today on May 6th we have a light layer of new snow. We are enjoying daffodils and crocuses but not much else yet. Perennials and bushes and trees are on the verge of erupting. We won’t plant any gardens outside of greenhouses and walls of water until June, when we will still have to be prepared for late frosts and snow. I am still in the process of seeing how my trees will handle late frosts, etc. from year to year, but I am really exited about my two plum trees that have now handily survived two very snowy and windy winters. Two summers ago my husband and I drove 5 hours to pick up the tress I ordered from Wyoming Plant Company in Casper. The trees are Toka Plum and Black Ice Plum. Last summer we harvested a medium sized bowl full of Black Ice Plums from a tree that had not even been in the ground a full year. They were exquisitely delicious. I would research those to see if they might be a good fit for your location.

Jill, I absolutely love listening to your posts! The information you share. Your honesty and willingness to be vulnerable is a breath of fresh air. I’m learning a lot and being inspire even more! Here’s a big, sincere, THANK YOU ! From Delaware :)

Thank you so much for mentioning St. Lawrence Nursery again! I couldn't find what nursery put hardware cloth around the trees (good info) and it was them. I need to try them out my next tree order. Fedco and Burnt Ridge Nursery are my usual, been very happy with them also!

Listening to your struggles makes me appreciate my great soil, abundance of rain (most years) and length of our growing season. Happy gardening everyone. My struggle this year is getting a dry few days to get my gardens planted

I sing praise for currants whenever I can. I live in the PNW and they thrive here as well. Easy to take cuttings and multiply.

Sounds like you are leaning towards intuitive gardening...my favorite way.

Growing what wants to grow. I live in a climate few domesticated things have been developed for. But, nature is growing a lot of things. So, I figured, I can grow enough plant based food. I just need to find the best that grows here and grow it out to seed for several generations. That's my experiment for the rest of my life.😆

No!! Well I'm so disappointed that you can't make it to the Festival this year, Jill. I have been following you for the last few years and so appreciate your sharing and teaching

I planted a Frostbite Apple tree along with other orchard trees in 2020. It is great! I’m in southern MN. Technically zone 5 now, but I buy everything to tolerate zone 3.

I don’t know that I’ll ever get to the full fledged homestead like you, but I do love your videos.

I'm in sw WY almost 7000 ft elevation gardening is hard too. 😮 2 of my apple trees haven't come back. 3 of my other apple trees have come back. I also give a shout out to st Lawrence nursery in New York. I highly recommend them. I might add that the reason my 2 apple trees didn't come back is because my naughty llama got in the enclosure and ate the tops of them off and a stinkin jack rabbit also got in there and barked is all the way up otherwise I'm sure it would have been just fine!!! Happy planting!!! Good luck Jill!!

Thanks for the clear insights on partnering with nature. My work friends were teasing me because I have a garden. They mocked surprise when I said I gave up on potatoes and sweetcorn this year. They were both failures last year and I’m still building out my dream Homestead. I’ll buy potatoes and sweetcorn this year.

I agree wholeheartedly! Moving from the PNW to the high prairie has been such an adjustment for us- from wet to dry, from acidic soil to alkaline soil, and a mile closer to the sun, among other changes. We tried to bring blueberries with us, only to discover that honeyberries are much better suited to our climate here, for one small example. It's been really a fun challenge to learn which plants want to grow here and how to support the ones that can technically survive, but definitely need help. Season extension obviously helps a lot, but permaculture is the single best thing I've been able to implement in our garden here- and it has made a huge difference! (Also, I've been learning a lot about the medicinal properties of the plants that grow natively here, and that's been very cool. Russian olive, for example, is super medicinal, and is one of my favorite teas now.)

Thank you Jill! Blessings to you and your family!

I just listened to an episode of Stacy Westfall’s podcast where she discussed the same concept of letting things be easy in the realm of progress with horse training. This is why I still enjoy using the term “agriculture” to encompass raising livestock, equines, and food because this lifestyle of partnering with nature in every facet teaches many of the same lessons in different classrooms.

I live at the foothills of Appalachia so a lot grows well here but I find myself giving more and more space to things that naturally grow wild with minimal effort. This year I planted half of my garden in winter squash. Just a few seeds in the ground, no care whatsoever and I’ll have more pumpkins than I can eat all winter. The same applies to collard greens and green beans! As far as animals goes I really wanted to try dairy sheep because they are smaller animals but it has been a struggle. Cows and pigs it is for us then. Learning from my mistakes everyday.

I'm in a FB group for growers of honey berries and some of the members are growing them in big orchards in Alaska. So definitely would work for you!

I packed and wrapped your order !!! 😁👍

Ha! I am here in California trying to grow blackcurrants and jostaberries because I love them so much! My avocados send air kisses to your currants!

When I moved into my new home I thought I could grow anything and everything. Tried for years to grow grapes. I was on a river. I’ll have a vineyard! I’ll make tons of wine! But, reality set in. Why, oh why, couldn’t I grow grapes? Well, I have too many trees - everywhere! Not enough sunshine. Matter of fact, I have to ALWAYS look for shade plants, with some rare exceptions. But like you, it went from what can’t I grow, quickly to what can I grow? And what does well here? - And don’t fight that. Once you’ve figured that out you can work with that as a base. I now lease a plot in a community garden for my veggies. But, it has it’s own problems, too wet, and I get blight out there. So you roll and find what does well there as well. Adapt. And learn.

You are spot on! It's a lesson that I'm finally learning, as well. For ten years, I've struggled to keep some nursery cultivar blackberries alive. They were supposedly an outstanding cultivar, purposely developed specifically for my area. I've probably gotten three gallons of blackberries from them...TOTAL...in ten years. Meanwhile, the native dewberries thrive pretty much anywhere the birds and animals "plant" them. The berries are smaller, of course, but they're far more plentiful and actually have a lot better flavor than the nursery-bought plants. The nursery cultivar plants have finally died, and I've allowed the dewberries to take over my garden fence row. They crowd out more troublesome "weeds", the birds and pollinators love them, and I can graze on them while I put in that sweat equity on other things. Win, win, win! Yes, "Essentialism" is a good book! I read it more than a decade ago. A few days ago, while doing something else, I spotted it on my bookshelf, picked it up, and thought about re-reading it. Now that you've mentioned it only a few days after that seems a bit more than coincidence, so I think I will!

Thank you!

God created the earth and placed mankind here to care for His creation. My option is to try to help the earth and glorify God's creation. Ask yourself, are you making your part of earth better or worse? I garden for food and plant flowers for beauty and love of my bumble bees and birds. Can't say I'm always happy with rabbits and birds eating my green beans, but I'm very happy in my garden and feel close to God while in my garden. God bless y'all and keep growing.

🎉Wind is a problem like Wyoming out here eastern Colorado today Again about 50 with higher gusts!

This hit home. Makes so much sense. Great tips. Thank you ! Val C ❤️

Try elderberries and goji berry's grows great.

17:13 I love that you “gave permission” for people to have the freedom from needing to grow an entire grocery store in our yard. It’s too much pressure. We just can’t. I saw the funniest review on an app for locating local farmers markets. The whole point was to be able to find farmers markets so you may buy locally grown food. Key word… LOCAL! I live about half way between KC and Omaha. This review said the app works great, but they were looking for fruit like avocados, mango, bananas and citrus. Not strawberries or rhubarb. Well it’s June and that’s what’s growing in northwest MO. I felt sorry for this reviewer. I hope she figures out that those things don’t grow here before someone says, (with a wink and a nod) “yeah, come back next week. I’ll take care of you!”

I never had bad potting soil until this year. Every plant started then it stopped and finally shriveled up and died.

All of my seedlings, 100 of them, have died this year and I believe it's because of the potting soil I used. I've used it in the past with no issues. Last year it was the mulch and this year it's the potting soil. I'm 63 years old and have never had these issues with bagged products. It's very frustrating and makes me angry 😡

In the beginning... man is to tend the garden... manage the land and animals. We are not the parasites nor are we to abuse, we are to tend to it. Enjoying the fruits of our labor.

And I’ve always wondered why you don’t have many trees? We don’t have trees in large areas in Michigan, only because we’ve turned it into farmland. But we still have trees! I guess you are too rocky and predominately dry. It never seemed particularly conducive to veggie growing which was all your earlier how-to videos. You moving to livestock made sense.

Regenerative Farming!!!!